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I Wish
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Date Aired
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May 19, 2023
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Running Time
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20:41
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Previous Review
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Website
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Todd plays "I Wish" on the piano.
SKEE-LO - I WISH
A one-hit wonder retrospective
Todd: Hello... and welcome back to One Hit Wonderland, where we take a look at bands and artists known for only one song. You know what everyone loves? '90s hip hop.
Clip of The Notorious B.I.G. - "Big Poppa"
Biggie Smalls: I love it when you call me Big Poppa
Todd (VO): The best music, in it's best decade. Everyone agrees on this. Right?
Todd: Here's the thing. I remember the '90s, and you'd be surprised how many people didn't talk about it that way at the time.
Image of '90s essay complaining about the state of rap at the time
Todd (VO): A lot of old-schoolers hated the '90s 'cause of all the gangsta rap. [clip of Dr. Dre - "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang"] And not just because it was, you know, sexist and morally wrong and all that, but also because it was so commercial, [cover image of "Gangsta: Merchandizing the Rhymes of Violence"] that it crowded out all other forms of hip hop. According to these critics, hip hop used to have time for all sorts of different stories, and now it was nothing but guns and drugs.
Todd: This is, of course, not entirely true.
Clip of Skee-Lo - "I Wish"
Todd (VO): In 1995, when the East Coast-West Coast rivalry was dominating the industry...
Todd: ...a very different kind of rap song suddenly shot up the charts.
Skee-Lo: Hello, I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her
Todd (VO): It wasn't about money, or cars, or women. In fact, it was specifically about the absence of all these things.
Skee-Lo: 'Cause when it comes to playing basketball
I'm always last to be picked, and in some cases, never picked at all
That song was, of course, "I Wish", by short king Skee-Lo. Not to be confused with [clip of Goodie Mob - "Cell Therapy"] Cee-Lo, another 1995 rapper who would go on to bigger and better things. Not so for Skee-Lo, but for a brief moment in the mid-'90s, Skee-Lo stood tall.
Todd: At a time when the big rap hits were...
Clips of Mobb Deep's...
Todd (VO): ..."Shook Ones" and [...and Coolio's...] "Gangsta's Paradise", Skee-Lo was out here standing up for the losers of hip hop.
Skee-Lo: I wish I was a little bit taller
He wished he was a little bit taller, he wished he was a baller, he wished he had a girl who looked good, he would call her.
Todd: He wished he had a rabbit in a hat with a bat and a six-four Impala. [Todd has a moment of realization] Most of these wishes were understandable.
Todd (VO): But no one at the time would have rapped about "wishing" to be a baller rather than actually being one.
Todd: Now in the '80s, this song wouldn't have seemed so out of place.
Todd (VO): And if it had come out more recently, that would make perfect sense. In fact, I'm half-convinced that this is an early [clip of "Freaks and Geeks" by...] Childish Gambino song that went back in time fifteen years somehow. But in 1995, it was an anomaly, a portrait of a completely different kind of hip hop; rap's "Revenge of the Nerds".
Skee-Lo: So if you down on your luck, then you should know just how I feel
But if Skee-Lo ever got to enjoy all the things he wanted, we would never know. Just when it seemed that his success would make all his wishes come true, he completely disappeared... like, off the face of the Earth.
Skee-Lo: I wish I was like, six-foot-nine
He may have been short, but his time in the spotlight was even shorter. Even for hip hop, a genre known for short careers, the complete non-existence of Skee-Lo after 1995 is weird.
Skee-Lo: I wish I was a little bit taller (I wish I was a little bit taller) I wish I was a baller
Ever said to yourself, "I wish I knew what happened to the "I wish I was a little bit taller" guy?"
Todd: Well, that's what I'm here for - to fulfill that wish. [pauses] If you want the rabbit in a hat with a bat, I can't help you.
Skee-Lo: She looks fly, she looks fly, make me say "my, my, my"
I wish
Before the hit
Footage from Ava DuVernay's 2008 documentary This Is The Life plays throughout this section
Todd (VO): Once upon a time, in South-Central Los Angeles, there was an establishment - a health food store called "The Good Life Cafe". They started having open-mic nights in 1989, and by the early '90s. it had become a hotbed of underground hip hop. The lady who ran the place would not allow cursing, which sounds like it should produce some very lame music, but that is not what happened. Instead, a lot of really good alternative rap came from that scene. [clips of "What's Golden" by...] Jurassic 5, [..."Drop" by...] The Pharcyde, [...and "93 'Til Infinity" by...] Souls of Mischief. And a lot of big names like Ice Cube and Fat Joe were known to visit from time to time.
Early footage of Skee-Lo freestyling at The Good Life Cafe
Skee-Lo: My name is Skee-Lo and I am your hero
Todd (VO): It was in The Good Life Cafe circa 1993 or '94 that people first remember hearing of [photo of...] Antoine Roundtree, better known as Skee-Lo. Skee-Lo moved around a lot as a kid; he got a [footage of old-school hip hop and breakdancing] taste of the original old-school hip hop after living in New York for a little bit. Eventually, he settled in LA. Skee-Lo is also... quite short. If Google is correct, he's literally shorter than [photo of...] Too Short, who is literally named "Too Short"!
Todd: Also worth pointing out: he was a kid.
Todd (VO): Like, he might be 18 or younger in this [more early footage of Skee-Lo performing] clip, just a year or so before he got famous. Now according to him, he first got in with that crowd not as a rapper, but as a producer, making his own beats for other people to rap over; that was how he got his foot in the door.
Todd: And one day, he found a record he liked a lot.
Live performance of Bernard Wright - "Spinnin'"
Todd (VO): This is "Spinnin'", from Bernard Wright, from the album [album cover for...] "'Nard".
Todd: Not what I would have named that.
Clip of "Who Do You Love" by...
Todd (VO): Bernard was a funk/R&B guy who was kind of bubbling under through the first half of the '80s, and after his [disc cover for...] final single "Yo Nard" tanked, he seems to have quit to make Christian music.
Todd: But 19-year-old Skee-Lo found this one little bit he liked.
Clip of live performance of "Spinnin'" with a familiar-sounding jazz riff
Todd (VO): And he combined that with a poem he wrote in class.
Todd: I'm not clear what happened next, but it must have happened very fast, because, before he knew it, he had a record deal.
The big hit
Video for "I Wish" begins to play with Skee-Lo catching a small white feather
Todd (VO): Forrest Gump, huh? I mean, it is the mid-'90s. [clip from Forrest Gump] Although that's definitely a different feather than Forrest Gump had. Did an ostrich fly by?
Skee-Lo: Hello, I wish was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller
"I Wish" is entirely the product of Skee-Lo; he made it himself, alone in his bedroom. As well as the entire album it's from. But, I mean, people must have recognized immediately that this was something different.
Todd: Like, it sounded fine, but it was about this little short guy rapping about driving a shitty car and getting no bitches!
Skee-Lo: Her boyfriend's tall, and he plays ball, so how I'm gonna compete with that?
Todd (VO): This guy must have been amazing; like, how good do you have to be at rapping to rap about not being a baller in 1995? Someone must have seen something special in him, because it's crazy that this was released the same year as the [album cover for...] Friday soundtrack. Someone must have recognized that there was a void in rap music that Skee-Lo could fill.
Todd: Let's be real; most of us are not gangstas, even if you're from the mean streets.
Todd (VO): So for a lot of people, I imagine this was the most relatable song on the radio.
Todd: I mean, who among us has not had to say, "Scat, skittle, sca-bobble" at some hood rats?
Skee-Lo: I tell 'em "Scat, skittle, sca-bobble"
Todd: Picky! Who are you to be choosey, Skee-Lo?
Todd (VO): Like, a lot of rappers talk about "keeping it real", but there's always a lot of posturing involved; Skee-Lo did not do any of that. He's the realest of all! He had wishes, and he shared them with the world.
Skee-Lo: I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat and a six-four Impala
Todd: Okay, we might as well ask the question now.
Todd (VO): And yes, I know I'm not the first person to talk about this; it was the preeminent question of 1995 music, right after whether [clip of "You Oughta Know" by...] Alanis really dated Uncle Joey.
Todd: And of course, that question is, "What's the deal with the rabbit in the hat with the bat?"
Skee-Lo: I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat and a six-four Impala
Todd (VO): See, I'd wished for the car first.
Todd: Be-hatted rabbit was not really high on my list.
Footage from Kaley Cuoco's 2013 Super Bowl ad for Toyota, which was built around "I Wish"
Todd (VO): This song has had a long shelf life, and the "rabbit" is always the first thing that comes up, including when it showed up in a Super Bowl commercial ten years ago!
Kaley Cuoco: 'Sup
Rabbit in a Hat with a Bat: 'Sup
And of course, when latter-day Family Guy got hold of it; the repository of lazy pop-culture punchlines.
Clip of Family Guy episode "Connie's Celica", which includes a cutaway gag of Skee-Lo asking a genie for his wishes
Peter Griffin (Seth MacFarlane): Skee-Lo!?
Skee-Lo: What?
Peter: You need money!
Barely even trying anymore.
Todd: Not saying my jokes are any better.
Todd (VO): I think the weirdest part of it is how it's sandwiched in between a bunch of normal requests!
Skee-Lo: I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller
And you're like, "Yeah, yeah!"
Skee-Lo: I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat and a six-four Impala
Todd: Yeah! [beat] wait, the thing before last, what was that?
Todd (VO): But at last, we can put the debate to rest. These days, we are fortunate enough to have [logo for...] Genius.com, to explain [Picture of Genius.com lyric sheet for "I Wish"] all your obscure hip hop references.
Todd: So, here we go: according to this website, [scrolling images accompany Todd's narration] "a 'rabbit in a hat' is a 'trick', and 'trick' is a slang term for a prostitute (or just an easy girl), a "bat" refers to the logo of Bacardi rum, so Skee-Lo's fun and catchy little rhyme is a creative way to say he wishes he had a sleazy girl who brought him some booze!" [long pause] Are you lying to me, Genius.com?
Todd (VO): See, I might have bought it without the Bacardi stuff, but yeah, this sounds like a prank written by [clip of...] Darryl from The Office.
Darryl (Craig Robinson): You know, things us Negroes say
Skee-Lo: Wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
My guess is, the "rabbit in a hat with a bat" is just silly nonsense.
Todd: Cause, you know, hip hop can be silly and fun sometimes, remember that? Fun rap?
Images of various newspaper reviews of Skee-Lo's first album from the time
Todd (VO): You can tell people did not remember that from reading his press coverage, because they're all shocked that he's not cussing! I mean, look at this: "Nonthreatening!"; "Hangin' with the Hurt Boy!"?
Todd: The thing is, this was not actually that unprecedented.
Todd (VO): In the late '80s, [clip of DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince - "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson"] and early '90s, this would have been a completely normal song to write.
The Fresh Prince: One punch, that's all it took
He hit me, and my ribs and my insides shook
There were plenty of songs about getting chumped, or [clip of The Pharcyde - "Passin' Me By"] not getting the girl, like "Passin' Me By" by the Pharcyde, which Skee-Lo actually name-checks!
Skee-Lo: And these girls keep passin' me by
Todd (VO): Which I think goes to show just how quickly rap's image had changed; even a lot of the non-gangsta stuff in the mid-'90s was positioning itself as the opposite of gangsta. And Skee-Lo is not doing that; he's just not in that conversation. Which was probably a good move.
Todd: And to show how good an idea it was to avoid the comparison to G-funk, here is the best-forgotten "street mix" of "I Wish".
Audio of "I Wish (Street Mix)"
Skee-Lo: I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her
Female Singer: Skee-Lo, you know, you know, you know
Wish you were taller, wish you were a baller
Todd: Ha, boy...
Todd (VO): Yeah, I don't know, maybe doing this song up like "Gin and Juice" is-is meant to be ironic... I don't-I don't know, it just really does not work.
Skee-Lo: And do you wanna know what's really whack?
See, I can't even get a date, so what'chu think of that?
The thing is, for all the putting himself down and revealing all his shortcomings, I've never seen anyone talk about this guy like he was a dork, or embarrassing. He clowns on himself in the video, but he doesn't come off as a clown, or pitiful, or-or a creepy incel.
Todd: I've definitely heard a lot [clip of Lil Dicky - "Ex-Boyfriend"] of comedy nerd-rap about being a sad, pathetic schmuck with no money, and most of it feels really sweaty and desperate; has that needy stand-up comic vibe and... Skee-Lo really does not.
Skee-Lo: I wish I had my way, 'cause every day would be a Friday and you can even speed on the highway
And I think that's mostly because of the beat; first and foremost, this is a song. You know, like a real song with a fun beat that everyone can get down to.
Skee-Lo: Hey you, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down
[Todd grooves to the beat, clearly enjoying himself]
Skee-Lo: Ah yes, ain't that fresh? Everyone wants to get down like that
Todd (VO): But then, right after this...
Todd: ... he went away.
Todd (VO): With no explanation. The obvious conclusion is that, when you make a song about what a loser you are, you get treated like one.
Todd: Is that what happened, though?
The failed follow-up
Audio clip of Skee-Lo - "Top of the Stairs", paired with clips from Money Train
Todd (VO): Okay, soundtrack singles were all the rage at the time, so his next single was also put on the soundtrack to Money Train, the buddy-cop movie from '95 that, unfortunately, is not Bad Boys. But there you have it; Skee-Lo was cool enough at one point to make a song for a Wesley Snipes movie, that-that's something.
Skee-Lo: No one really cares about the guy on the bottom, no one really cares about the guy beneath
Everyone wants to be down with the dude on top of the stairs, top of the stairs
"Top of the Stairs" is about how people get blinded in the race to get over, and how we all have our reasons to try and reach the top, but also we should be careful who we step over on the way.
Skee-Lo: When you on top of the world, girls they come, but when you fall down, you won't find one
Todd (VO): Sounds like good advice, especially from Skee-Lo to himself, since this didn't really go anywhere. It made the Bubbling Under charts without hitting the Hot 100. Seems like he was quickly on his way back down the stairs.
Skee-Lo: And on the top of the stairs, yeah, they got color TVs and even girls come in two pairs
Why'd this flop? I don't know, I like it.
Todd: But "I Wish" was something we didn't have in 1995.
Skee-Lo: Little brother, this is all we got
Todd (VO): We definitely had plenty of these "wisdom of the streets" songs, from [clip of 2Pac - "Keep Ya Head Up"] people who spoke more authoritatively about it.
Todd: Also, you can't rap about being a virgin forever.
Todd (VO): It might have just been that he had moved on to rapping about how he gets tons of girls now, actually, and when he doesn't sleep with them, it's by choice.
Skee-Lo: 'Cause I got a million honeys knockin' on my door, and I'm not tryin' to score with one
'Cause diseases kill and that's ill to make a 'mil and then you gettin' done
I realize the AIDS era was different...
Todd: ...I'm still not sure that this is a winning message
Skee-Lo: So throw your hands in the air, wave 'em around if you've been treated unfair
Todd (VO): Maybe it was a problem with his image, or the fact that he didn't curse caught up with him, or maybe...
Todd: ...there were more [puts hands together] sinister forces afoot.
Clip of Skee-Lo's...
Todd (VO): He also had another single, "Holdin' On", that did even worse than that one.
Backing Vocals: I keep holdin' on
Skee-Lo: I'ma keep holdin' on
Great sample, by the way. I don't know why people didn't catch on to this or any other song from the album; and for the record, Skee-Lo does not like being called a "one-hit wonder". He's like, [clip of the 1996 Grammy Awards, showing Skee-Lo being announced as a nominee for "Best Rap Solo Performance"] "I-I was nominated for two Grammys, including for the album, so, clearly I had more than one song."
Todd: Uh... I like the album. There's a fun song at the end called "The Burger Song".
Live footage of Skee-Lo performing "The Burger Song"
Skee-Lo: You gots to be a Big Mac, a BLT, Quarter Pounder with some cheese
Filet o' Fish, a hamburger, cheeseburger, a Happy Meal
A milkshake, Diet Coke, bigger or the smaller size
A chicken oriental with salad on the side
Todd (VO): That's a good song. I saw some reviews at the time complaining about the production, which Skee-Lo did all himself.
Todd: I like the production, but uh, yeah, I do have the nostalgia googles on. I am going to like basically any hip hop song that came out in 1995.
Todd (VO): But there is also one reason I haven't mentioned for Skee-Lo's disappearance, and it's a big one.
Todd: It is, as Q-Tip called it, "Industry rule #4,080".
Clip of A Tribe Called Quest - "Check the Rhime"
Q-Tip: Industry rule #4,080
Record company people are shady
Todd (VO): Skee-Lo was on a tiny independent label called "Sunshine Records".
Todd: I gues it was a subsidiary of [Image of logo for...] Scotti Brothers. That's not a hip hop label, that's...
Clip of "Amish Paradise" by...
Todd (VO): ...Weird Al's label. [clip of "Hearts on Fire" from Rocky IV] They made Rocky soundtracks, not hip hop.
Todd: So, it seems that they probably didn't promote him right.
Clip of SHADE45 interview with Skee-Lo
Todd (VO): But it got worse. According to Skee-Lo, Scotti Brothers tried to rip off his publishing, and so he went for years and years in a legal dispute to try and hash that out. He eventually walked away with all his money, but it took forever to clear up, and the way he puts it, [portion of 2012 interview where Skee-Lo discusses his royalty dispute with the label] by 1996, he was already burned out on music. By the time he made his second album...
Todd: ...his chance at a mainstream career was gone.
Did he ever do anything else?
Todd: [exhales] Okay, I try to be as accurate as I can here in my videos. [clip of Edison Lighthouse - "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" with text "*DISCLAIMER: In the Edison Lighthouse video I repeated Tony Burrows's claim from his website that he sang "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" but upon further research I now believe he might be lying"] One thing I'm trying to do less is take the artist's word for it. So I'm doing my best to double-check, but in this case, I can't.
Clip of SHADE45 interview from earlier
Todd (VO): The only source for anything about Skee-Lo's life after 1996 is Skee-Lo himself, from a bunch of interviews he did around 2013, including all that stuff about his label disputes; I cannot verify any of that.
Todd: That's not me saying he's lying, that's me saying no one wrote a goddamn thing about this guy for 17 years, or if they did, it's been erased from the Internet. [screenshot of...] His IMDb bio says he did a little TV acting, but he's not actually credited in anything.
Clip of...
Todd (VO): Says he did some DJing at MTV's Summer Beach House in '96, couldn't find that; says he was on, [intro for Goode Behavior] I-I guess Sherman Helmsley had a UPN sitcom for one season, couldn't find that either; it says he was in [TV advert for Dangerous Minds] Dangerous Minds the TV show, couldn't find that; also, there was a Dangerous Minds TV show!?
Todd: When?
Clip of Baywatch Nights episode where Skee-Lo had a guest spot
Todd (VO): I did find his appearance on the Baywatch spinoff Baywatch Nights, and here you can see Lou Rawls tell him his music's no good!
Rapper (Skee-Lo): Yeah, I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller, I wish I had a girl who looked...
Lou Raymond (Lou Rawls): You know, I hear that cutting-edge thing in your music up there, but uh... Go listen to some Muddy and some Tebow, you know what I'm saying? And then come on back, we'll talk about it.
Huh, that's funny. Also, Lou Rawls was a character on Baywatch?!
Todd: Well, what about his music?
Clip of Skee-Lo - "At The Mall"
Todd (VO): Well, some six years after he had his first hit, there was a second album in 2001. Here, you can see the video for his song, "At The Mall", where he tries to play off to his girl how some pigeon [Text on screen indicating that this is "authentic '90s slang"] got his number.
Skee-Lo: You know I got women, that's a definite fact, and I'd accumulated honeys all across the map
Man, remember the lonely sad boy who couldn't get any? Our boy's a man, now.
Skee-Lo: My girl see me cheatin'
I'ma tell her I just caught her at the mall (The mall)
I don't know that girl at all (That girl at all)
And I wonder how she ever got my number
Doesn't matter, you just hang up when she calls
I just met her at the mall, baby
Todd (VO): Heh, that was kinda funny. It was funnier the year before when it was called [clip of Shaggy's...] "It Wasn't Me"
Shaggy: It wasn't me
Clip of "At The Mall"
The thing is though that I am not sure that [image of I Can't Stop cover] this song or this album actually exist. Like, it was recorded obviously, I can see it there on YouTube and most of the other tracks. [screenshot showing search for the album returning 0 results] But literally no one has ever talked about it or mentioned it. I found one interview where, even though he made a video for it, he claimed that he wasn't really involved with this album. Someone else made it from old demos and only released it in Germany.
Todd: Again, I have no way to verify.
Clip of SHADE45 interview from earlier
Skee-Lo: And then, you know, my project The Fresh Ideas, the quoi, I'm really excited about that.
Todd (VO): Anyway, this is him in 2013, promoting his long-delayed third, [clip of Skee-Lo - "Vibe Is Right"] or maybe second album, Fresh Ideas.
Skee-Lo: Much too smart for that, I feel your vibe
See, I found a love and it feels
I guess it was okay enough for a self-released album that obviously wasn't gonna get any attention. It got off to a real bad start though.
Skee-Lo: The game sometimes, it gets dirty as coal miners
What's wrong with the fans, the suffer from Alzheimer's?
Don't these ni**as know I'm the greatest of all timers?
One hit wonder, no wonder you got a shiner
Todd: Okay, I have to say this to One Hit Wonder rappers, because it's come up a few times on this show.
Clip of Mims - "Move (If You Wanna)"
Mims: They can call it one-hit wonder, but I guess that means I'm one-up
Todd (VO): Yeah, don't make songs about how you're not a One Hit Wonder - it never works!
Todd: Other than that, I don't know what he's been up to.
Various recent clips of Skee-Lo
Todd (VO): Seems to be happily married, he has an independent label and some kind of music distribution service. And because "I Wish" seems to keep popping up everywhere, I'm sure that song's made a lot of money. And if it's true that he kept a hold of his publishing, he gets to keep all of it.
Todd: So, I hope he got himself that Impala.
Did he deserve better?
Todd: I don't know, maybe. He could've done a little bit better, been a little bit taller, been a baller.
Skee-Lo: I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller
Todd (VO): It's hard to say, since he didn't really get a chance to follow it up. But I think it's safe to say he's certainly made the most of his one hit. At a time full of gangsta shit, he proved that hip hop could belong to the wannabes. And since we're basically awash in sad boys and dorky comedy rappers for the last ten years, you can say that "I Wish" was a real trend-setter.
Todd: And it's still better than everything that came after.
Todd (VO): I mean, who doesn't love "I Wish"? I mean, I'm actually pretty tall, and my car's pretty nice, and I can afford to get my own rabbit in a hat with a bat.
Todd: Which I have.
Todd (VO): But still, this song hits me deep in my soul. "Ah yes, ain't that fresh?"
Todd: Oh, it sure is. Thank you, Skee-Lo.
Skee-Lo: I wish, I wish, I wish
Closing Tag Song: Skee-Lo - "I Wish (Remix)"
THE END
"I Wish" is owned by Volcano Entertainment
This video is owned by me